We are pleased to advise that our heritage grain blend “Millers Choice” is at last, back in stock! The grain is once again grown by Paul Bowler (Durie & Partners) at Camp Green Farm near Stowmarket, Suffolk (see Paul’s photo below in a field of Millers Choice grain!). The grain, from Paul’s 2022 harvest has been blended with a small amount of another heritage variety, Oland to give it improved baking properties, increasing the protein level of the flour – thus potential oven spring and better crumb structure.
Below, I share the history of this wheat population and what you can, once again, look forward to!
Millers Choice is known as a wheat “population” – it is a collection of different varieties of wheat which have similar characteristics, varieties that date back to the 18th and 19th Centuries. Created, or curated by Andy Forbes of the Brockwell Bake Association, Andy took a selection of wheat berries (seeds) from another population put together from seed banks by John Letts (organic farmer and grain specialist) and created a population with a strong dominance of Lammas type varieties. Lammas varieties dominated in the British Isles up until the mid 19th Century and were renowned for their bread baking qualities.
To this population he added 20% of Spanish long straw variety grains to improve the populations ability to withstand drought.
The result is a wheat population which produces a soft, creamy flour with huge flecks of golden bran with bags of flavour.
Here we see the Millers Choice grain growing – look carefully (right click on the image and you can open it in a new tab) and you will see that the ears of wheat in the photo are different – some have hairs, some are almost ripe, some are still green. You are looking at the different varieties of wheat in the population, all with their subtly different characteristics. These characteristics make the crop much more resilient to different climatic conditions – rather than the whole crop struggling, some varieties struggle whilst others thrive!
I am still experimenting with the flours to fully explore the baking characteristics, but I share below some images from the Brockwell Bake of Millers Choice White flour baked off into delicious boules!
Our Millers Choice wheat is grown at Camp Green Farm, Debenham, Suffolk. You can now purchase wholemeal and white Millers Choice flours from our mill shop (online or in person). We are grateful to Andy Forbes and to Durie Partners for their help in preparing this article.
All our other flours and grains are also, of course, available!
